Clothes steaming and drying cabinets for steaming and drying jackets, trousers, blouses, skirts and the like are known, U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,373 discloses such a cabinet. These cabinets are normally used for steaming clothes to remove wrinkles and the like and also for drying and airing the clothes after the wrinkles have been removed. Indeed, in certain cases, the cabinets are used for drying and airing clothes only, in which case the steaming period of the cycle would not be used.
The cabinet disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,373 comprises a housing of flexible material which may be folded up for carrying. The housing defines an interior region for hanging clothes, and a boiler for generating steam is mounted in a lower region of the housing beneath the interior region. Steam is delivered from the boiler into the interior region of the housing to steam the clothes. A motor driven fan and electrically powered heating element are also provided in the lower portion of the housing for delivering heated air into the interior region for drying and airing the clothes. This cabinet, like other similar types of cabinets, suffers from a number of serious disadvantages. Firstly, the steam tends to condense on the inner surfaces of the walls of the cabinet and when sufficient steam has condensed, droplets form which drop onto the clothes, causing serious water mark staining. In fact, it is believed that it is impossible to achieve adequate steaming of the clothes in the cabinet of U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,373 without condensation drops forming water marks on the clothes.
A second disadvantage of the cabinet of U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,373 and indeed other such cabinets is that even with the application of steam to the garments, it is virtually impossible to remove all the wrinkles. This is particularly so in certain fabrics where the frictional resistance of the fibres is such as to resist relative movement of the fibres even with steaming. No suitable steaming apparatus has so far been provided which can remove wrinkles from fabrics where there is a relatively high degree of friction between the fibres.
There is therefore a need for a clothes steaming and drying cabinet which overcomes the problems of known cabinets.